As his 1970s-set movie project moves into pre-production—casting around 70 unknowns is one upcoming task—Eli Russell Linnetz did not allow himself to be distracted from the production of his fashion narrative. As the designer outlined it, this ERL pre-spring collection was storyboarded just so: “This story takes place in 1983 on the Sunset Strip. It’s about a bunch of vampires that live in Hollywood in the ’80s. You know, all my collections are always so bright and colorful. But for this one, I wanted to show a different side of LA: like, I’ve never even really made things in black before. So basically, the whole collection is super intense and black.”
Entitled Hollywood Forever, the collection is wearable scenography for the story of a young hopeful named Penny who busses from Pittsburgh to LA to chase her dreams but ends up sucked into a vampire demi-monde. Around the three videos he shot to follow her arc, Linnetz plotted pieces that signaled a Lost Boys meets Rebel Without A Cause take on grunge/rock flavored tropes of teenagerdom.
Linnetz said his favorite pieces included a black tank with the letters from the Hollywood sign heat-pressed in wonky disarray: “I mean it’s so simple and obvious, but it’s also so perfect.” Wide-shouldered suits with wetsuit construction details and collars cut to pop (plus ties, shirting, and more) came printed with monochrome images of Marilyn Monroe as the Statue of Liberty, alongside Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean. Elvis and others were custom-painted by hand onto bikers whose sometimes checkered panels added rockabilly bite.
Caps lettered with Actor or Director will soon, Linnetz said, be modeled by some well-known proponents of those professions for a campaign he is plotting. Alpaca mohair sweaters faced with Punisher-esque skulls, “artisan” plaid shirting, crazy keychain belts, cuff necklaces, and other pieces of jewelry by Tom Binns also featured in a collection that Linnetz reported was all made in California. He concluded: “Obviously, I don’t go to therapy. It’s like me living and kind of recounting my childhood through these things and remembering bits of movies I love: and that’s kind of how I see the world.
